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State Chemical
- STATE CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING CO.
- PATTERSON-SARGENT
State Chemical Manufacturing Company
Founded in 1911 by the five Zucker brothers, the State Chemical Manufacturing Co. (today known as State Chemical Solutions, a division of State Industrial Products) has been producing industrial cleaning products as part of Cleveland's industrial landscape for over a century.
The company has occupied four different locations in its long history, three of which are documented in this collection. The first was at East 4th Street. In 1913, it moved to 2162 East 2nd Street. By 1927, the company had grown so much that it moved into a newly-constructed plant and warehouse on East Superior Street.
State Chemical continued to grow, eventually expanding into the Superior Avenue Baptist Church next door and purchasing a warehouse on Hamilton Avenue. This location became the company headquarters in 1966, and eventually expanded to cover an entire block. Today, State Chemical continues to manufacture and sell industrial cleaning products from its headquarters at 3100 Hamilton Avenue.
About the Photos
The photos gathered here, the majority in black and white, date from 1914 to 1974. Most of them were donated to Cleveland Memory from State Industrial Products while the rest originate from the Cleveland Press Collection and the Cleveland State University Office of Planning Structural Survey Collection.
For Further Reading
Workers load BPS paints into train car at Patterson-Sargent
plant on Hamilton Avenue, 1946. View photo.
Patterson-Sargent
Although not founded in Cleveland, the Patterson-Sargent Paint Company was headquartered here for many years. The Cleveland plant, located at 1325 East 38th Street, manufactured BPS paints, which were used for a variety of household and industrial applications and were sold in hardware stores nationwide.
Patterson-Sargent was eventually bought out by H.K. Porter, a Pittsburgh-based holdings company owned by Thomas Mellon Evans. The vacant Cleveland plant was eventually purchased by State Chemical Solutions, who provided the images in this collection.
About the Photos
These images were bound together in an album found in the former Patterson-Sargent plant at 1325 East 38th Street, now owned by State Chemical Solutions. They date from November 1943 to August 1946 and show expansion of the existing plant and construction of the railroad spur that would eventually run through it. The later photos also show employees at work in the warehouse and loading area.
Go to Made in Cleveland to explore more about the manufacturing sector in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.
This website is the practicum project of Library and Information Science student, Kylie Carpenter. She would like to thank the following from the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University: Bill Barrow, Special Collections Librarian; Lynn Bycko, Special Collections Specialist; Joanne Cornelius, Supervisor, Digital Production Unit; Lauren Felder, Web Specialist. In addition, she would like to thank William A. Barnett, Vice President and General Counsel, State Industrial Products Corp.